Top-5 ranked featherweights Chad Mendes and Ricardo Lamas will meet in the main event of UFC Fight Night 63, April 4th at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia. The booking was announced last night during the UFC Fight Night 59 broadcast by FOX reporter Ariel Helwani, who added that the Mendes vs. Lamas show would have a 1 p.m. ET start time.

Mendes’s last Octagon appearance was a decision loss to Jose Aldo at UFC 179 — which marked the second time that Mendes was defeated by Aldo. There will have to be a changing of the guard if Mendes hopes to sniff another title shot in the future. (Hint, hint.) Lamas has scored wins against Hacran Dias and Dennis Bermudez since his own title-fight loss to Aldo last February at UFC 169.

Essentially, the winner of this fight could clinch a featherweight title shot — as long as Conor McGregor beats Jose Aldo in May. But if Aldo retains his belt? It’s hard to make a strong case for either guy to get another crack. That being said, a UFC event in the middle of the day is a great excuse to spend your Saturday afternoon eating wings and drinking beer, and that’s always a good thing. The current UFC Fight Night 63 lineup is…

For a highly anticipated fight card marred by injuries to its premiere fighters and an ongoing crisis in Mexico, UFC 180: “Werdum vs. Hunt” turned out to be quite the showcase.

UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who had a card built entirely around him for the promotion’s first trip to the country with support from Diego Sanchez and Erik Perez, had to bow out of a title fight against Fabricio Werdum a few weeks removed from the championship encounter. This was after both Perez and Sanchez were already out with of their respective scraps with wounds.

When it comes to the champion, there’s always a lingering concern about his injuries. Multiple setbacks which required surgery (including his latest) has seen Velasquez fight six times in four years, against three different opponents.

But the show must go on, which means the attention turned to Werdum and a combat sports legend serving as an unexpected title challenger in an interim heavyweight championship bout.

Our goiAlex Giardini will be hustling out round-by-round UFC 180 results from the PPV main card starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest updates, and shoot us your thoughts in the comments section or on twitter. ¡Gracias, amigos! (That’s all I got.)

-Dennis Bermudez vs. Ricardo Lamas: Bermudez has won seven straight fights since becoming a finalist on TUF 14 — the longest win streak in UFC featherweight history. Coming off Performance of the Night-earning victories against Jimy Hettes and Clay Guida this year, Bermudez could clinch a title shot with a victory against Lamas, the former title challenger who bounced back to the win column with a decision over Hacran Dias in June. (Hispanic credentials: Bermudez is Puerto Rican-American; Lamas is half-Cuban, half-Mexican.)

Handling play-by-play for the UFC 169 pay-per-view broadcast is Aaron Mandel, who will be putting live results from the main card after the jump, starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest updates, and shoot your own thoughts into the comments section. Thanks for coming.

There may be 24 fighters hitting the scales at today’s UFC 169: Faber vs. Barao II weigh-ins, but the eyes of the MMA world are going to be focused on one man. No, not Jose Aldo, nor Renan Barao or Urijah Faber or that Lamas guy; I’m talking about supposed flyweight John Lineker, who battles Ali Bagautinov in a potential #1 contender bout tomorrow night.

I say “supposed” because Lineker has shown up heavy for three of his past five fights at flyweight, attaching an unfortunate asterisk to his current four-fight winning streak. Thankfully, Lineker says he has finally made the correct changes to his weight-cutting regimen, so join us after the jump to see how he and the rest of the fighters competing at tomorrow’s event fare in today’s weigh-ins.

And with each UFC pay-per-view comes the p4p best gambling advice on the internet: The Gambling Addiction Enabler. So join us below as we dissect UFC 169 and determine where the best opportunities to make some serious bank lie, because let’s be honest, we’ve all got child support payments to make. What? You don’t have any illegitimate children? I feel like I don’t even know you guys anymore.

At -165, Makdessi earns the right to be the favorite against undefeated Alan Patrick, who will be looking to make it 2-0 in the UFC. Both fighters are coming off first round knockout wins and while Makdessi has earned his stripes against better competition, it is hard to ignore “Nuguette’s” (?) winning formula thus far in his career. There is no denying that Makdessi is the more talented striker, but Patrick mixes up his striking with takedowns very well which may present problems for Makdessi if he is unable to stop the larger man from taking him down early and often. Against Hallman, “The Bull” showed that his Achilles heel is the ground game and this is where Patrick at +145 is worth some consideration based on what we have seen from him throughout his career.

What’s that, you say? There’s actually a different UFC event going down this weekend on Fox? THE PREDATOR HAS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR MIDDLING CABLE TV CARDS. And if you don’t like how he does business, he’s sure there’s a Designing Women marathon with your name on it playing somewhere, bud.

After opening up this edition of “Predator’s Predictions” by alienating his dissenters as pathetic girlie-men and thanking Seth Macfarlane for bringing back Brian on Family Guy, Frye launches right into his usual mix of whiskey-soaked predictions and occasionally misogynistic insights. A few highlights:

The UFC confirmed last night that UFC 169 — the promotion’s Super Bowl Weekend card that’s scheduled for February 1st, 2014, in Newark — will be headlined by a pair of title fights in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions.

In the main event, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will emerge from a 28-month hibernation to face Renan Barao, the interim champ who’s been steady wrecking fools in Cruz’s absence. UFC president Dana White has “made it pretty clear” that if Cruz has to pull out of this title unification bout with another injury, he’ll finally be stripped of his belt and Barao will be named the official champion.

In the co-main event, 145-pound champ (and Barao’s Nova Uniao homeboy) Jose Aldo will attempt to make his sixth UFC title defense against top contender Ricardo Lamas, who’s 4-0 in the UFC including stoppage wins against Cub Swanson and Erik Koch. Aldo is coming off his four-round shredding of Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163, which gave the Brazilian his 16th consecutive victory overall, as well as a broken foot.

Got any predictions, Potato Nation? And are two competitive title fights in the lighter weight classes just as interesting as one Jon Jones squash match?